The Magical One-Question Hogwarts Sorting Quiz

[melannen]

Someone at my work put up a House Points display for a Harry Potter program, so of course we are all talking about what Hogwarts House we are. And I am getting increasingly annoyed at how badly designed so many of the online sorting quizzes are. So here is the simplest and most accurate sorting quiz of all:

Imagine you are eleven years old. You are sitting at the front of the Hogwarts Great Hall. All your new classmates are staring at you. Somebody puts a battered old hat on your head that will make a decision that will change the course of the rest of your life.

Poll #20657 The Magical One-Question Sorting Quiz

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 125

View Respondents

What is going through your head?

View Answers

I'm pretty sure I know what house I'll be in, and I'm looking forward to it!
55 (44.0%)

I'm afraid I know what house I'll be in, but I hope I'm wrong.
9 (7.2%)

I have no idea what house I'll be in, but I'm excited to find out!
33 (26.4%)

I have no idea what house I'll be in, but I just hope I fit in there.
28 (22.4%)

If you chose the first option, you are now Slytherin!
Slytherins tend to be very certain of their place in the world, a strong sense of their own rights and privileges, and to have a deep respect for authority and tradition (at least in the abstract.) Slytherin has by far the highest proportion of "legacy" students whose ancestors have always been Slytherin, and by far the lowest proportion of first-generation students (who are unlikely to have that much confidence in the sorting system.) Students are usually about evenly split between those who expected Slytherin and those who expected one of the other three houses.

If you chose the second option, you are now Gryffindor!
Gryffindors have strong opinions about things, are not easily swayed by the opinions of others, and are willing to speak up for what they believe. They do not give respect unless it has been earned. Gryffindor tends to have an even mix of students from families with long histories (who are conflicted about tradition and expectation) and first-generation students (who came in with a very basic knowledge of the Sorting system but still thinking they understood it.) Gryffindors are also about evenly split between students who expected Gryffindor and students who expected one of the other houses.

If you chose the third option, you are now Ravenclaw!
Ravenclaws approach the world with curiosity, skepticism, and an open mind, and are the most likely to change their opinions based on new information, or refuse to give an opinion with limited information. Their opinion of authority is "trust, but verify." Ravenclaw has the second-highest proportion of legacy students, and also ends up with a lot of younger siblings who have fewer family responsibilites. Ravenclaw also has the largest number of students whose parents went to other wizarding schools.

If you chose the fourth option, you are now Hufflepuff!
Hufflepuffs tend to have the least secure sense of their place in the world; they value community, friendship, and cultural influence, and have a keen sense of their social status. They are most likely to approach problems based on pragmatic concerns rather than ideals or principles. Hufflepuff is the house of strivers, who feel strong pressure to succeed and improve. Hufflepuff has the highest proportion of Muggleborns, but also the highest proportion of millionaires and Ministers.

Comments

[loligo]

I disagree with your quiz, and would be happy to expand on that if you're interested!

[melannen]

I mean, that's usually the first response of Slytherins who did not expect to be Slytherins.

Arguing about Sorting is the main purpose of Sorting, so you are welcome to expand, as long as we establish going in that I'm still right based on canon. :P

[bell]

It worked for me!

[melannen]

Hooray!

[deird1]

I'd swap your last two options.

Hufflepuffs would be keen to join with their house, whatever house it was, and would be eager to find out about it so that they could start being part of it. Ravenclaws would, I think, be much more concerned about being "good enough" for it, and anxious in case everyone else turned out to be better at doing it than they were.

[melannen]

What's your argument for that?

Those two houses are tricky from a canon-evidence-only POV, because we see so little of them in canon (and especially so little of them in their first couple of years.) So pretty much any theory of them is going to be heavily based on fanon or peripheral canon.

But there seems to be a wide, and long-standing, perception of Ravenclaws as people who want to be "good enough" and want to be "the best" and I just don't see much evidence for it in canon - the very smart people we see in canon who are super invested in being the best all seem to be either Gryffindors or Slytherins (Probably many of them people who either assumed they would be Ravenclaws or were afraid they wouldn't be Ravenclaws). The Ravenclaw we know best is Luna, and it's really hard for me to imagine her being super anxious about her class ranking or anything like that; she is possibly the most laid-back major character of them all. I'm sure there are Ravenclaws who are really invested in being The Best, but the feeling from canon in general is more that Ravenclaws are more likely the ones who spend two months doing all the research and then never bother to turn in the paper because the research was the important part.

Similarly, we don't see much in the way of Hufflepuffs close-up, but what we do see is a lot of Ministry families, and in particular the MacMillans seem to be the standard of a Hufflepuff family: lots of (internal or external) pressure to do well and to be your best self and to fullfill your full potential, whatever that may be. I bet a lot of Triwizard Champions have been Hufflepuffs.

I think there's also a thing going on, though, where the culture of the House tends to mitigate those tendencies - Ravenclaw has a house culture of wanting to be the smartest, so most Ravenclaws get a little more ambitious as a result; Hufflepuffs have a house culture of being really supportive of each other and helping each other deal with that sense of pressure, so a lot of them get more relaxed. But that's not what I really see as the natural tendencies.

And of course all of this is based on 11-year-olds and a snap judgement under stress, so once you get to seventh years people have grown up into all kinds of people.

[sholio]

Hahaha, I picked the first one because I've never had the slightest doubt that I'm so Ravenclaw it hurts and hanging out with Ravenclaws all day sounds great ... and got the one House I'm fairly positive I don't fit AT ALL. XD Is self-confidence and self-knowledge really that much of a Slytherin trait? idk.

(I fully expect a higher-than-average proportion of self-described Ravenclaws arguing about being sorted into the wrong house in the comments, as per form.)

[melannen]

I mean, the thing about all this Ravenclaw self-sorting is that we know the two people in Harry's year with the best marks (and the most emotional investment in their marks!) are a Slytherin and a Gryffindor! And so many people go "smart = Ravenclaw" and leave it there when canon directly contradicts that.

But also I think for me the thing about the Slytherins is they have a certainty that they know where they belong *and* a certainty that The Powers That Be will help them get there. So I think a lot of people are ending up in Slytherin in this quiz because... idk, because they trust me to write an accurate quiz when maybe they shouldn't? :P And there's that small-c conservative trust in authority figures and tradition that's also very Slytherin to me.

You are right that a fundamental aspect of a Ravenclaw is being ready to argue about where they were Sorted, so I'm confused as to why all these Ravenclaws are picking the option which requires them to trust that the quiz will sort them correctly!

For me, I always figured I was a Ravenclaw because all the other houses seemed to require virtues I really don't have, so I was like "yep, probably Ravenclaw, but it would be just as cool to be one of the others, and also who knows what the Sorting Hat is actually looking at, really." But also I was a teacher's kid so I never had any trust that the people in charge of a school had any damn clue what they were doing, so even if I was 100% sure I was a Ravenclaw by personality, even at age 11 I wouldn't have had any confidence at all that the Sorting was more accurate than chance.

But I do think there's people getting sorted into Slytherin here who wouldn't have been that sure of themselves when they were 11, or wouldn't've had that much trust in the Hat if it were for real.

[kore]

I'm so Ravenclaw it hurts and hanging out with Ravenclaws all day sounds great ... and got the one House I'm fairly positive I don't fit AT ALL

OMG, exactly //cries

[kiezh]

Yeah, I think there are a lot of Ravenclaws who know perfectly well that, given these sets, this is the one I'd get put in! How we feel about that varies, obviously.

Hermione, I think, specifically argued her way *out* of being a Ravenclaw because she liked Gryffindor better. If somehow I was persuaded to allow the Hat to sort me, and it suggested Slytherin because in some ways I was ambitious (or, more likely, Gryffindor, because HERO WANNABE), I would have been all "Hell no, those aren't my defining traits. If I have to have a House, I want the House with the best library, and the highest likelihood of finding other people who care about figuring out how magic works!"

So unless one is arguing that Hermione was *really* a Ravenclaw and Harry was *really* a Slytherin, because the Hat suggested/would suggest those options, despite their choices... all of us who say we'd be Ravenclaws? Would be Ravenclaws.

[kalloway]

Not even surprised to be a Hufflepuff!

[melannen]

Hooray for Hufflepuff! Hufflepuff was always my favorite house.

[recessional]

.....yeah, no.

At 11 the most important thing in the world to me was knowing new things. It still is. It's also what I did and do with most of my life. I'm not particularly cunning, and don't particularly value it, and didn't then; I'm not particularly ambitious, and don't particularly value ambition, and didn't then.

The idea that knowing = thinking about what makes you special = Slytherin is . . . silly? It presumes a self-centred/assessment-of-self-in-a-value-system way of approaching the entire question? Which might be accurate for you but is definitely a huge assumption when it comes to other people.

11-y-o me would know she'd be in Ravenclaw because the categories are Known Quantities:

- Gryffindor: brave/chivalrous/etc.
- Hufflepuff: hardworking/etc
- Slytherin: ambitious/cunning/etc.
- Ravenclaw: knowledge/intellect/etc.

And yes, those are arguably simplistic, but those are also clearly the simplistic ideas that the community has about them, which would thus be what would be fuelling my 11 year old assessment. All the moreso if I were Muggleborn because then I've LITERALLY only heard the explanations of other 11 year olds AND the Hat's Song (which I actually do not find contradictory, tbh: not always the same, but I don't really find any of the quality's listed to ever contradict each other, within the same house).

It's a categorization puzzle: here are your four categories, place relevant objects in categories. The relevant object is me. At 11 I was well aware that I wasn't particularly brave (in fact KNEW I wasn't brave, as I hated scary movies, HATED scary situations, LOATHED scary rides and in fact just about anything that involved "brave" was "no"); I was well aware I HAAAAAATED hard work; was well aware I was not ambitious and I didn't really care about being "the best"*; but I LOVED READING and LOVED LEARNING and LOVED KNOWING NEW THINGS and LOVED FINDING THINGS OUT and WANTED TO KNOW EVERYTHING.

Four categories: which one does this child go in? 11 year old me knows how to do these puzzles! They're some of her FAVOURITES at school! She even likes the ones where they're SURPRISE categories that require Extra Thinking!


(*I needed to be a certain level of Good Enough, but this was an external thing: if I wasn't Good Enough then I was a waste of space who deserved death. Because 11 year old me already had a LOT of the thinking patterns that would solidify into adult severe depression. Once past the level of justifying my right to exist and not be garbage, I wasn't particularly concerned about where I was on the hierarchy otherwise.)

[kore]

At 11 I was well aware that I wasn't particularly brave (in fact KNEW I wasn't brave, as I hated scary movies, HATED scary situations, LOATHED scary rides and in fact just about anything that involved "brave" was "no"); I was well aware I HAAAAAATED hard work; was well aware I was not ambitious and I didn't really care about being "the best"*; but I LOVED READING and LOVED LEARNING and LOVED KNOWING NEW THINGS and LOVED FINDING THINGS OUT and WANTED TO KNOW EVERYTHING.

Oh boy, is that familiar, yeah. I think the majority of people answering here would probably find that familiar, at last most of it. Everyone was always amused (still can be amused) that just give me a book, I'll go off and be happy. No further entertainment required.

[rachelmanija]

Nah, I really don't think I'm a Slytherin.

[kore]

we are all morbane slytherin, apparently

[staranise]

Just how many 11-year-olds did you test this on, to make you so confident that you're right and everyone else is wrong?

[melannen]

I tested it against Harry Hermione Neville most of the Weasleys Luna Draco Snape the marauders Ernie Cho and Cedric and a few others, partially? I'm not actually all that confident cause that's a small biased and non-blinded dataset, especially for some of the houses, and many of them I don't have any data till they were later teens, but I did my best to account for the biases.

I'm pretty confident no other Sort is based on a much better dataset, though, since there are very few people we can actually test against their result from the real sorting hat, and I used all of them. Because the real sorting hat doesn't apply to real 11 year olds. (I did spend yesterday socializing with real 11 year olds though, and I can tell you none of them would've trusted any magic hat their school told them could sort them, given how scathing they were about their pta.)

I am perfectly willing to concede that my results won't match those of many other tests and theories, but I propose that many of those fail badly against my dataset.

(also this is a sorting quiz, about as low-stakes as a theory can be, so yeah, I'm sure it's not perfect. I definitely need to tweak some of the wording. But it's less wrong than any of the quizzes I found online this afternoon.)

Anyway it's way pasw my bedtime so I leave yall to talk among yourselves for now.

[kore]

WHY AM I ALWAYS SLYTHERIN WHEN I AM CLEARLY RAVENCLAW

[muccamukk]

I got Ravenclaw when I wanted to be Hufflepuff. Fucking Ravenclaws, man :P

[kiezh]

Ha, my response would actually be "I'm pretty sure I know what house I'll be in, and I'm looking forward to... refusing to participate in the House system, and arguing vehemently that it is unjustifiable, based on extremely sloppy thinking about What People Are Like, and abusive to children!"

And yes, that would be me at eleven. Me at eleven would be STRIDENT and ANGRY about the whole thing and ready to march up to Dumbledore and challenge him to the philosophy-of-education equivalent of pistols at dawn. (Me now basically agrees with me-at-eleven's arguments, but is much less likely to spend energy on trying to reform a system that's unlikely to give a shit about what I have to say.)

I am a Ravenclaw by... basically every standard I have ever seen spelled out, which is why I was certain about what House I'd be sorted into. Also, at eleven, I was clearly and overpoweringly socially identified as a smart bookish philosophical (extremely opinionated and mouthy) kid, so I would have expected Hogwarts to identify me likewise.

So, Ravenclaw. But I would be a conscientious objector Ravenclaw. :D

[recessional]

*cackling so hard at this image*

Sadly I did not yet have the social-theory background at 11 to have reached the same conclusion (I was fixated on OTHER areas), but I admire 11 year old you's conviction.

[gehayi]

Actually, I picked "I'm pretty sure I know what house I'll be in, and I'm looking forward to it!" because I'm a proud Hufflepuff and I'd love being in Hufflepuff House. I cherish its values (justice, loyalty, patience, faithfulness and hard work); I admire Helga Hufflepuff who wanting to teach everyone because that was fair. While we've only seen Slytherin at the worst of times and while ambition is not an evil trait by any means, it's not my dominant trait.

Also, for practical reasons, I don't want to be anywhere near the other three Houses. Slytherin is in the dungeons (not great for someone who gets dangerously sick in cold, damp areas), and Gryffindor and Ravenclaw are both in towers. Until Hogwarts installs some magical elevators, I'm better off in the ONE House whose common room is known to be near the kitchens (i.e., the ground floor).

[melannen]

Yeah, I think regardless of anything else, the Sorting System (and Hogwarts as a whole) fail pretty hard against disability and special educational needs. (Mind you, given what we actually see in the books, there's that depressing suspicion that "my accessibility needs are more important than the Hat's opinion" translates to "I never got a Hogwarts letter." :/)

[schneefink]

I had to remind myself that I'm 11 in this quiz, so I narrowly picked 3 over 1, but it depends pretty much entirely on what I've been told about the Sorting (is the Hat always right? Does it put me in the House that I fit closest now or that will be best for me? What do the Houses actually stand for? etc.)

[melannen]

I feel like "I can't answer without knowing more background information" would also have been a very vaild option for a Ravenclaw sort. (Based on the books, though, what you'd been told would have depended heavily on what sort of family/class you came from, and that seems to be a major factor in where people end up? So I don't think that's inaccurate.)

[liv]

This poll and the discussion are really fascinating! By your argument I would have sorted Slytherin, because at 11 I was confident of my place in the world and trusted authority. But my self-belief rested on being *clever*, and not at all on being socially privileged. So the house I was confident and optimistic about was Ravenclaw. So maybe I get Slytherin and argue the Hat into changing me to Ravenclaw, or maybe I get Slytherin in theory but Ravenclaw in practice because I'm Muggleborn.

Your quiz has caused me to reflect that I was more Slytherin at 11 than I am now. Answering as present me I'd pick excited to find out, no hesitation. At 11, well, not being sorted Ravenclaw would have been a devastating blow to my self concept, but that's an example of a quite Slytherin attitude, I have value because I'm better than others.

[melannen]

I think there's an element where.. a) a deep self-belief that you're clever *and* b) a deep belief that your cleverness is all you need to end up where you belong is actually a reflection of a certain type of privilege?

Like, I've known plenty of kids who either were as naturally smart as I was, but had no confidence that they actually were, or were confident they were smart but in a "fuck you" sort of away against people in authority who were constantly telling them they weren't, or both. Because they weren't the sort of person, or from the sort of family, who was supposed to be clever.

Like, I'm not saying that if you would have gone into the the Sorting being smug about how gifted you were, that means you were a rich overprivileged racist dickhead. But you probably did have a certain level of personal history that meant you were confident your cleverness would be properly recognized and would be treated as an inherent virtue of you as an individual, and at least in the US, that's heavily (though not, of course, universally) linked with race/class/family tradition.

And I think it is pretty clear in what we see in the books that there's a level of implicit bias based on that kind of thing in the Sorting, whether JKR intended it or not.

But yeah, even if you don't accept that the Hat is racist, by my test there are probably a lot of Muggleborns who ended up in other houses either because getting their Hogwarts letter knocked that sense of confidence in the world for a loop, or because they didn't really understand the Sorting well enough by that point to have confidence about the Sorting itself.

[princessofgeeks]

Wow; I guessed all those totally wrong!

[stellar_dust]

So here's what you need to do: find a group of 200-500 11-year-olds who have not yet been exposed to Harry Potter (somehow); have them all read Book 1; then have them all take your quiz. Then at 10-year intervals when the cohort is 21 and 31 (could also do 5-year intervals depending on your specific concerns), give them the quiz again, and after the Sorting, give them a follow up survey asking which house they expected, their fandom involvement, how many times they have read the books or seen the movies, and their exposure to and thoughts on other sorting quizzes. Then you can come back to this post and evaluate its accuracy for the people who have taken it today!

p.s. you're wrong i'm definitely gryffindor

[recessional]

.....okay but that sounds like a lot of fun and I'm trying to figure out if there is ANY WAY IN HELL one could justify it as Valid Research. >.>

[syntheid]

Hm, so. I voted for option 1 more because that one was 'pretty sure' aka, there's still some uncertainty, but I think it's likely I'd be in Ravenclaw. I was telling a friend I think my real reaction is closer to "I'm pretty sure I know what house I'd be in, but I'm afraid I'm wrong." I certainly don't have *no* idea, I could at least rule out Gryffindor and probably Hufflepuff at that age. I was terrified of everything and a tiny misanthrope, so those houses wouldn't have suited me very well.

Slytherin isn't totally wrong for me; I view myself as Raverin, but that's also kinda with the real world knowledge of an adult looking at this knowing Slytherin isn't actually the evil house and lacking the same amount of social stigma as identifying as Slytherin-adjacent we have in reality versus in the wizarding world. And given the hat does take into account the child's wishes, I don't think it would've sorted me into Slytherin because I'd either have grown up in the wizarding world aware that they have a bad rep or have read up on it and knew the same. Which, regardless of if I believed that to be true, I wouldn't want the social stigma of it.

[antisoppist]

1 and 3 are people whose life experience up to this point has been positive and 2 and 4 are people whose life experience up to this point has been negative. On just those two groups, you're sorting for optimists v pessimists. I am a pessimist who thinks life will always be grim but I might be clever enough to outwit it. Hence I worry I'll get Slytherin because I am too sneaky and constantly trying to outwit life being out to get me and wind up with Gryffindor.

I can never decide which house I should be. I can see aspects of all of them.

I answered based on what I actually did at a new school aged 11. I had been picked on for reading too much and being accidentally rude to people in primary school. I started secondary thinking "OK, this time round, I will work out who the key people are and get into their group from the start and they will be my friends." Needless to say, this did not work because the people I picked/stalked became friends with each other, and also form captains and ultimately senior prefects, and ignored me, but I'm quite impressed that 11 year-old me identified them within ten minutes of arrival and was attempting to analyse and socially engineer my class' friendship groups. But I also felt that this, which was a survival tactic, was a wrong and sneaky thing to be doing and would not have wanted it to be noticed that I was doing it.

[zlabya]

Yup, that's where I thought I'd be but then I admit i was pretty sure that's where the answer I chose was leading. Also considered answers 1 and 3 which makes sense as I have plenty of Ravenclaw and a bit of Slytherin in me but am by no means (IMHO) a Gryffindor.

[recessional]

I'm INF* so. :)